This study is concerned with developmental stability and change in children's responses to emotional distress in other persons. This is a follow-up at ages 6 to 7 of children who were studied in the second and third years of life (MH 00242). Data for both periods are detailed descriptive accounts of responses to another person's distress. Naturally-occurring and simulated distress situations were the basis of these accounts. Individually patterned ways of responding were apparent by the end of the second year of life. Considerable consistency from the early to the later age period was found in individual children's modes of responding to others' emotions.